


A Tall Ship and a Star

by acertainheight



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-22
Updated: 2014-07-22
Packaged: 2018-02-07 12:58:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1899852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acertainheight/pseuds/acertainheight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: "Lying on the deck of the ship together, looking up at the stars, they plan their voyage." Maybe the stars mean something important, something sacred; maybe they don't have to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Tall Ship and a Star

**Author's Note:**

> A quick, short fill. Title from the poem Sea Fever by John Masefield. This may not be exactly what the prompt requested but, at the very least, it does include 1.) a ship, and 2.) stars.

Marian Hawke is confused, exhausted, and ever-so-slightly seasick. She's starting to think that maybe this has become a permanent state. For days, everything has been mad: An escape from a burning city, a storm that threatened to tear apart their creaking boat—she can hear Isabela's indignant cry of _it's a ship, you dolt_ in the back of her mind just at the thought—and...well, maybe mad is an understatement. Her life shot past madness years ago. Chaos is more like it, with a dash of disaster for good measure. She can hardly remember a time when her head wasn't spinning.

Of course, the fact that she's absolutely useless when it comes to sailing doesn't help with the head-spinning situation. She can't tie a decent knot to save her life and she still hasn't figured out which side is starboard and which side is...whatever the other one is. Mizzen, she thinks, or maybe grommet, or another one of the impossible words that Isabela keeps shouting. The first red sunrise had been accompanied by sighs of _honestly, Hawke, take that stupid armor off before you fall overboard and drown_ ; the second had come with the less-than-gentle suggestion that maybe some people were more qualified to be cabin boys than first mates. Isabela may be at home here, but Hawke can't say the same. Not yet. Lothering, Kirkwall, ripped from her by one crisis after another—no, there are times when Hawke isn't sure if she'll ever be at home again.

But then there are other times, times when peace wraps itself around her weary bones and stills her aching heart. Those are the times she lives for.

It has been another hard day in a series of hard days, still frantic with the lingering fear of pursuit, but night has fallen at long last. Everything is different at night. Simpler. Sprawled out on the deck with Isabela warm beside her, Hawke can start to let herself breathe easy again. The crew is sleeping, the ship is still, and only lapping waves dare to break the sacred silence. 

They are anchored east of Hercinia, or west of Estwatch, or maybe north of...somewhere. Hawke has never been much for geography. All she knows is that it feels like a thousand years have passed since her final glimpse of Kirkwall, small and brilliant as it burned. Now there is nothing left to see—nothing but the sea, the sky, and the fragile line between them. Hawke stares up at the heavens like she is searching for answers, but there are none to be found.

Though the sky above is black as ink, the night is anything but dark. In Kirkwall, bright lights and heavy clouds had always obscured the stars; here, out on the open ocean, the whole world is cast in a celestial glow. The flickering pinpricks of the city have been replaced with shimmering waves of light, swept across the sky in mile-wide brush strokes. And yet, for all the beauty of the night, it is a haunting, trembling beauty. It is the sort of beauty that makes her chest ache with a longing she cannot quite place.

And then Isabela's voice breaks into her thoughts. Her fingers close cool around Hawke's arm. “What are you thinking about, sweet thing?”

“The stars.” Hawke shifts her gaze from the sky to Isabela. “And us, all the way down here. Don't they make you feel...small?”

“A long time ago. These days I don't let anything make me feel small.” She reaches to brush wild hair back from Hawke's eyes. “Why should I? You, me, the stars—we're all a part of the same thing.”

Hawke smiles despite herself. She shifts closer until their noses bump. “You make it sound so profound. Like some grand cosmic scheme. Tell me more, Sister Isabela.”

“Oh, are we roleplaying now? Acting out Sebastian's guiltiest dreams? Mm, you _filthy_ sinner.” Isabela wiggles her eyebrows in an exaggerated display of lust. She manages to bite back the laughter shining golden in her eyes; Hawke isn't quite so successful.

“Oddly compelling, but...not really what I was going for.”

Isabela shrugs and idly twists a lock of Hawke's hair between her fingers. “The stars are up there to guide us. They're a tool, that's all.”

The words are almost reassuring, if only because Isabela is murmuring them to her from an inch away. Almost. Hawke draws a settling breath and lifts her eyes to the sky again. There is a part of her that still longs for something _more_ , that still wants to believe there is some deep meaning in the stars. “You know, the big one, that one there...the Chantry sisters in Lothering always used to call it the Maker's Eye. I was never sure if that was supposed to be a reassurance or a threat.”

“Everyone _I_ know calls it the Witch's Tit.” Isabela pauses. “And by 'everyone' I mean 'me,' but I'm hoping it'll catch on.”

Hawke eyes the gleaming speck above them and tries to imagine telling the sisters of Lothering about Isabela's name for the star. The image of their scandalized faces is enough to banish her last traces of melancholy. She laughs and plays along. “I like that name better. Look, those over there—they're shaped a bit like a cock, aren't they?”

“Ooh, they are! See, I always knew you were meant to be a pirate.”

“As long as the only qualification is spying vulgar constellations. I've been staring at the stars for an hour and I still don't understand how they're supposed to do any kind of guiding.”

“Well, I didn't say a _good_ pirate. That's what you have me for.” She fingers the edge of Hawke's tunic. “I don't know what you'd do without me. It's tragic, really.”

Hawke twists to press into the crook of Isabela's neck, breathing in the salt of the sea and the smoke of the city they once called home. “Very tragic. So where are you and the stars going to take me, Captain?”

“Anywhere and everywhere. Antiva. Rivain. Across the ocean and far away, until no one can ever find us again.”

It sounds easy. It sounds _right_. Hawke throws a haphazard arm and leg over Isabela and grins into her shoulder at the squirm of protest. “Kirkwall used to mean 'far away' to me, you know. I'm terribly boring. I don't know how you put up with me.”

Isabela untangles herself from beneath Hawke's long limbs and shifts to straddle her waist in a smooth, familiar motion. She leans down to claim a kiss; Hawke gives it up readily. “Mostly by hoping I'll wear off on you. I'm nothing if not an optimist.”

“And what about when we're too old and grey to sail?” Hawke studies the curve of Isabela's lips, the shimmering gold around her neck, the deepening lines at the corners of her eyes. She is so much the same, even after all these years—the same flashing eyes, the same wicked smile, as eternal as the sea. The future has always seemed so distant. So impossible.

Isabela laughs, rich and warm, and laces her fingers with Hawke's. “What makes you think I'll want anything to do with you by the time you're old and grey?”

“Oh, I don't know, something about the things you whisper in my ear when you think I'm asleep.” The words roll off her tongue with the ease of a jest and the cadence of a dare. She has been holding this knowledge close to her chest for days.

Isabela's jaw drops. When she recovers, it is only enough to splutter with all the grace and dignity of a squawking gull: “I never—I don't—”

“Sure you don't." Hawke grins. "And you don't look at me all sweet and sappy when you think I'm not paying attention, either.”

At that, the flicker of that old familiar fight-or-flight in Isabela's eyes fades into a fondness that fills Hawke up from head to toe. She smiles, rueful, and shakes her head. “I look at you like that whether or not you're paying attention, you goose."

“Maybe,” Hawke says, drawing out the word. “Lately. I like it. You should look at me like that more often. Throw in a wistful sigh about your fluttering heart or your quivering loins—something poetic.”

“That's your idea of something poetic?” With a long-suffering groan, she flicks Hawke's nose. “If only Varric were here to share in my horror. We could toss you over the side together.”

Hawke laughs at the thought—she can hear Varric's chuckle, his sigh of  _see, this is why you need a storyteller around, Hawke—_ and tries her hardest not to dwell on all the miles between them. It is not an easy task. “Somewhere, his toes are tingling.”

“I'm sorry, his _toes_ are _tingling_?”

“That's a phrase people use, I think. Maybe it's Ferelden.”

“That is definitely _not_ a phrase anyone uses,” Isabela says, but she's laughing despite her words, and Hawke is absolutely certain that there is no better sound in all the world. "Except for you, apparently."

Hawke briefly considers arguing the point, but she has a sneaking suspicion that maybe Isabela is right after all. "Well, I'm...innovative. Maybe I'm a poetic genius after all!”

“Maybe you're an idiot,” Isabela suggests.

"Maybe a little bit of both," Hawke allows. After a second of thought, she tugs on the sash around Isabela's waist and cocks a brow. "If only there was some way you could get me to stop talking."

"Finally, you have a decent idea." They both laugh, press into each other. Isabela knots one hand in Hawke's hair, leans in close to brush her lips along Hawke's neck, her jaw, the corner of her mouth—

And then Hawke is speaking again before she can help herself: “You were right, by the way.”

“Mm,” Isabela sighs, “my favorite phrase.” She stretches forward to pin Hawke's wrists against the deck and her voice drops to a teasing purr. “Say it again and call me Captain this time.”

Even in the most mundane of circumstances, trying to focus with Isabela's legs around her waist is a challenging task. Right now, framed by the black sky and the bright stars, with her hair caught in the wind, Isabela is a vision—something out of a dream. Hawke tries to shake off the fog of want that has settled over her and doesn't come close to succeeding. “Believe it or not, I'm trying to be serious.”

“So am I!” For a moment, Isabela looks like she is about to kiss Hawke, to silence her once and for all, but then she groans and tips her head back. “I can't believe you're doing this now. Fine. I have to know. What is it that I'm right about?”

“Sailing. When you said there was no feeling in the world like it. I wasn't convinced at first, but once we were out here, really out here—”

“Once you stopped vomiting over the rail, you mean.”

“Sometime around then.” Hawke smiles. “And now it's perfect. _You're_ perfect.”

Isabela clears her throat, looking something between flustered and pleased.“Well...you snore like a Mabari and you've nearly fallen overboard twice in as many days, but I suppose we can't _all_ be perfect.”

“You're the one who snores!”

“I am not!”

It's not the first time they've had this argument. Only the night before, Isabela had woken Hawke up with a shake and a sharp hiss of _stop snoring before I smother you,_ which she had defended as an act of revenge against Hawke doing the exact same thing the night before that. Hawke didn't mind the rude awakening, even if she'd still denied the snoring. She likes the argument. She likes that it means that Isabela sleeps beside her, in a bed that is _theirs,_ and she likes waking up with Isabela still pressed against her.

There are a lot of things that Hawke likes these days. Most of them involve Isabela.

Maybe all of them.

Hawke takes a deep breath and tries to find her train of thought again. It is buried somewhere beneath heaps of wild, reckless adoration. Hay in a haystack, she thinks, or something like that. “Stop besmirching my good name with your lies and let me finish. I just want you to know that I'm happy to be here, alright? Happier than I have any right to be.”

The sincerity seems to catch Isabela; her fingers curl into the fabric of Hawke's shirt, the laughter in her voice slips away, and she doesn't even think to mention that Hawke has no good name left to besmirch. “You don't always _seem_ happy.”

“Well, what with the mad dash from Kirkwall, abruptly finding out that I can't swim, leaving behind nearly everyone I love—”

“But not everyone,” Isabela says. The smile she offers alongside the words is measured, as if she is still feeling her way around this life they've stumbled into—the sort of life where people talk about things like love and kiss each other under the stars. They are making their way together, somehow. Slowly but surely, Hawke thinks.

“That's my _point._ The rest of it doesn't matter so much.” Hawke reaches up to tuck a loose strand of hair behind Isabela's ear. It is an easy excuse to let her hand linger there, to bring her half an inch closer. Not that she has ever needed an excuse to cling to Isabela. “I'm glad you're letting me tag along.”

“I made you a promise, didn't I?” Isabela catches Hawke's hand in hers. She presses a kiss to her palm and another to her wrist. “Something about me, you, and the horizon.”

“That's all I could ever ask for.” Hawke smiles. “That and a bottle of wine.”

“Mm. You're _so_ demanding.”

Above them, the stars shine on, painting the world silver with starlight. It is the same light that has brought them across the sea; it is the same light that dances in Isabela's eyes. And Hawke thinks: Maybe this is what the stars are for—these nights. Nothing more, nothing less. Maybe this is where they have been guiding her.

When Isabela kisses her again, sweet and easy, Hawke can feel it deep in her blood and her bones. It feels a little like  _love_ and a little like  _home._


End file.
